テレビ広告におけるジェンダーの役割の変容

日本とタイの比較か

抄録

Advertising gender role stereotyping has been a prominent topic in literatures since the 1970s. Over the past decade gender stereotyping in television commercials has received particular attention. Most of the findings of gender role research indicate that advertisements are generally moving toward a slightly less stereotypical stance. However, research of gender roles in advertisements is plentiful in the United States. Understanding of sex-role portrayal in an international context is limited because there are so few studies. Since it seems that the trend of gender roles in Asia will also change to non-stereotypical gender roles, it has been difficult to confirm the use of advertising stereotypes in Asia. In addition, there has never been any comparative research concerning the change in gender roles in television commercials between Japan and Thailand. Therefore, this paper compares the change in gender roles in television commercials between both countries.
This comparative content analysis of sampling advertisements from the ACC Awards in Japan
(1976, 1985, and 1995) and sampling of TACT Awards in Thailand (1976, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1995) suggests a possible reversal of traditional patterns of literature. In fact, the proportion of working women in Japan is low and has not changed much (47.6% in 1980 to 48.4% in 2005). In Thailand, this proportion is comparatively high (75.3% in 1978 to 76.3% in 1990). However, this research result reveals that the number of working women appearing in Japanese advertisement has significantly increased from 3.6% in 1976 to 27.7% in 1995. Moreover, the appearance of working women has significantly increased from 0% to 41.2% in high-level business and from 0% to 58.8% in middle-level business. In contrast, the number of occupational appearances of women in Thai advertisements has not significantly changed over time (5.0% in 1976 to 10.0% in 1995). According to this result, it demonstrates that advertisements in both countries reflect an ideal image of gender roles, not roles in reality. In Japan, commercials reflect an ideal image of the working woman, while Thai commercials reflect an image of the housewife.
In summary, the analysis of this research result refutes the conclusion that advertising role portrayals are becoming relatively more reflective of current realities. Additionally, since there is no significant change of gender roles in Thai television commercials, this also contrasts with literature that suggests a stronger argument for decreasing stereotyping. This analysis also suggests that an understanding of background and situation of gender roles in each society is crucial to interpret and analyze statistical results in this field. Moreover, this research proposes further longitudinal comparisons of the gender roles in television commercials among other Asian countries as well.